The Oxhorn Music Mix

Editor’s Note: The following is a short story inspired by The Super Furry Animals’ Clouberries, please give it a listen while reading this post.

She cried, but not loudly. It was a low sounding drip, settling into the rhythm of busses and laughter that spread out from her ground floor window. How can you change? she thought. What kind of platform did she have to jump off from, at this point? It was an old, grey day; it had been too long since she thought in these comfortable spirals. She dropped to the floor, curled up next to a heating vent, and clicked the old stereo on.

Billy Allen, Billy Allen. It all came down to him, his cocky smile, his veiny fingers, his brusque way of existing in a world that was too simple for his tastes. The last time she saw him - the memory that set her emotions rustling out of the gate, a moment ago - he was wearing a too tight, over-clean suit, shaking her hand and that of her aging father, with a sideways smile. A few months later, she saw the headlines.

It was an old wood paneled floor, the kind that accumulated old dust and absorbed the creaking heat from the vent her back was pressed on. It was a shabby sort of comfort - she felt old fashioned, like she was existing in an old story that she had never properly visualized before, The Dead. The radio hummed slowly but with a strangely full sound, touching every harmonic, like a giant walking home from a too-easy victory, shamefully aware that he monopolized the attention of everything he passed.

She stretched her arms, almost touching the opposite wall - it was a narrow hallway. There was a rusty sounding guitar somewhere close, not coming from the radio. Perhaps out of fear, she only allowed herself to be halfway aware of it, but then the metallic hum started slipping from one side of her to another. Was it her imagination?

She stood up with a start, wringing out a spastic shiver, as if that would end the sounds - but it didn’t. They built up, playing scales, swimming carefully and sadly along the wave of sound flowing from the radio. And then she saw him. He walked through the door, with that same hesitant smile he gave her five years ago.

Do you hear it? she asked, her mouth drying up.

I think I hear something different, he said.He gave her a knowing smile, a loungey wink, snapped his fingers, and started dancing, pointing his fingers from side to side, looking at the floor with a bit lip of bemused concentration. The music came from every direction, it was a sort of old fashioned jazz lounge jive. Her cat slid on her back paws straight through the room. A pigeon slammed into the window, but wasn’t harmed. He put his arm around her, and they shimmied across the overlapping wooden slats of the hallway, laughing at the giddy beat.

It was a perfect moment, though she knew that some part part of it proved that she had, right there, given up her sanity. As soon as that thought fully formed, he turned and slammed his hands on the wall, in an all together over dramatic scene, from what she remembered of him. No, he said, this will only be a moment. I’ve demasted, sure, I’m out there, drinking what’s left in the liquor cabinet and drifting farther into the Atlantic. The newspapers are right. But you’ll keep going, you’re changing already, look at your hair - it’s shorter than I’ve ever seen it. But I thought you needed this.
So this is it?

He gave her no answer.

Of course, she thought. She closed her eyes, endlessly depressed, slinking to the floor, forgetting him again.

When she opened her eyes - just a second later - everything was the same again. Just her and a dusty hallway. She thought she heard the radio still playing, but it was only a car horn, some disgruntled driver, blowing through the street. The song must have ended.

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